Jayapal: Iran Was ‘Pushed Into’ Closing Strait of Hormuz

On Saturday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that Iran was “essentially pushed into saying, we’re going to take control of” the Strait of Hormuz “and we’re going to now use economic risk as our substitute for military strength.”

Jayapal said that there is a “massive amount of chaos that everybody across the world is looking at, because, obviously, most of the oil — 20% of the oil flows through that Strait. So, it doesn’t just affect folks at home. And I know, in my home state, gas prices are now at $7. … And so, it is really causing enormous havoc. And prices are starting to get pushed down to consumers on other things as well. The price of goods [is] starting to go up. Orange juice, up 22%, right? So, you see the things that people go to buy at the store every day going up. But I think, across the world, this is a terrible situation for people to be in.”

She continued, “Even if the Strait of Hormuz was open — which it isn’t — that is a worse situation than we were in a little over six weeks ago when the war started. The Strait was open to all traffic, and there was no price on tankers going through, Iran hadn’t yet decided that they were going to — they were essentially pushed into saying, we’re going to take control of this, and we’re going to now use economic risk as our substitute for military strength. And so I think this has been terrible for countries around the world. They’ve been put into this chokehold that they can’t get out of, because the president is so chaotic and has created so much havoc across the world.”

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